Paul Fey and Walt Jaschek are creators of high-impact, award-winning national radio advertising. They launched Paul & Walt Worldwide, agency and production company, in 1991.

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Funny radio commercials

A partial playlist, actually. Here are five, funny, award-winning radio commercials, a few representative samples of literally thousands written and produced by Paul & Walt Worldwide. Enjoy.

“Laugh Catalog” | Funny Radio Commercial for George Schlatter’s Comedy Club

Our first Clio Award winner, for Best Use of Sound. Winner of LOTS more awards, too. Created for our good friend and long-time client Mike Mischler and King World, for the brand new and short-lived syndicated show, “George Schlatter’s Comedy Club.”Written by Paul Fey & Walt Jaschek. Produced and Directed by Paul Fey, Engineered by Bill Schulenburg. VO Talent: Peter Jones, Steve Susskind, Bobbi Block, Susan Tolsky, Bill Martin. FUN FACTS: Paul was a huge fan of the BBC Radio production of “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” and hunted down Peter Jones, the voice of “The Book” in that legendary series. Via a 3am telephone session from Paul’s hotel room at the Mondrian, he directed Peter in a London studio. Our “laughers” were chosen from dozens and dozens of auditions submitted by multiple LA talent agencies.

“Missing Persons” | Funny radio commercial for WCBS-TV and Matlock

One of our biggest award winners from the early 90’s. Created for WCBS-TV, and our great client and friend, David LaFountaine. Written by Walt Jaschek, Produced and directed by Paul Fey. VO Talent: Harvey Atkin, Tom Poston, Orson Bean. FUN FACT: Despite the great rhythm of this dialogue, none of the talent read with each other. Tom Poston missed the session due to a golf date with the king of Morocco (no kidding!) — and we had to record him separately and edit the dialogue together later. Harvey Atkin was recorded remotely from a studio in Toronto… and Orson Bean as the VO was recorded later in Hollywood.

“Robert Goulet” | Funny radio commercial for The Simpsons

One of our biggest award winners, including the $20,000 Radio Mercury Award for Best Comedy Spot in 1995. Created for our good friend and client, David LaFountaine at Twentieth Television, and the huge syndicated launch of The Simpsons. Writer: Walt Jaschek. Producer/Director: Paul Fey. VO Talent: Christina Belford, Robert Goulet. FUN FACTS: Walt originally wrote a script based on the idea of using the voice of James Earl Jones reading Bart Simpson’s blackboard writings. When it appeared James Earl Jones would be too expensive, Paul began exploring alternative celebrity voice ideas (including Kelsey Grammer, among others) — and finally, with the help of Elaine Craig Voice Casting, hit upon and made a deal with Robert Goulet. The rough production script included a list of dozens of Bart’s blackboard writings. Paul’s plans were to record all the lines, and decide later which ones worked best. He directed Robert Goulet over the phone from a studio in Las Vegas, where Goulet was performing at the time. Surprisingly, after many hours of postproduction, the spot simply wasn’t working — and was shaping up to be an expensive disaster. After dozens of unsuccessful edit attempts to make it sound funny… Paul tried adding various music tracks, which started improving the spot rapidly. The order of Goulet’s lines were ultimately completely swapped around to fit the final, classical track — which ultimately sounded as though it had been written for the spot.

“The Ballad of Judge Wapner” | Funny radio commercial for King World and The People’s Court

One of our biggest award winners from the early 90’s. Written by Walt Jaschek, produced and directed by Paul Fey, with music production by Matthews Griffith Music. VO Talent: Lance LeGault, Gene McGarr. FUN FACT: While we always enjoyed working with the late Lance LeGault, and loved his deep, western voice… we didn’t find out until the session that he had no sense of rhythm. His performance here was created with literally dozens of edits — practically every word and phrase was moved to fit the rhythm.

The St. Louis Media History Foundation inducted 20 other individuals into the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame that night, as well. More than 200 people attended a downtown gala at which the honors were bestowed. (The full list of the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame “Class of 2017” is below.)

Individually and together, Paul and Walt have reputations for creating high-impact, industry-admired advertising campaigns. They teamed up in 1991 to create Paul & Walt Worldwide, the radio commercial boutique agency and production company, and their work quickly won CLIOS, ADDYs and many other awards for national brands. Paul served as Paul & Walt Worldwide President; Walt served as Executive Creative Director. The agency had offices in Hollywood, California and St. Louis. Here they are in front of just a few of their industry awards.

Paul is now President and Chief Creative Officer of World Wide Wadio in Hollywood. Walt is now writing comedy and comics at Walt Now Entertainment. Both men are St. Louis natives and continue to collaborate frequently.

Line-up included George Noory, other legendary broadcasters, reporters, documentarians

ST. LOUIS, March 20, 2018 – Twenty-two legendary news reporters, editors, photographers, broadcasters, ground-breaking filmmakers, and shapers of public opinion were among the inductees into the St. Louis Media Hall of Fame on Saturday, March 17. The inductions took place at a gala at St. Louis City Center Hotel in downtown St. Louis before 200 friends and family members of the inductees, who were presented with framed induction certificates. They were selected for their significant contributions to print, broadcast and digital media, advertising, and public relations by the St. Louis Media History Foundation, a 501(c)3 organization that researches, collects, and archives regional media-related histories, artifacts and memorabilia.

Among the new inductees was longtime St. Louisan George Noory, host of Premiere Network’s Coast To Coast AM, who was recognized for transforming his late-night radio talk show into an entertainment powerhouse for millions of Americans.

Other inductees were:

Dave Dorr: Veteran St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports writer (1966-2001)

Paul Fey and Walt Jaschek: Founders of Paul & Walt Worldwide, for their highly creative radio ads for CBS-TV, NBC, Comedy Central, and many other national broadcast and entertainment clients.

J.B. Forbes: Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch for more than 42 years.

Tripp Frohlichstein: A former KMOV-TV news editor and founder of MediaMasters.*

Henry Hampton: Acclaimed filmmaker, who produced “Eyes on the Prize” for PBS and 80+ documentaries.*

Mary Lou Hess: The first female president of the Advertising Club of St. Louis.*

Cleora Hughes: The first African-American woman editor of an Entertainment section at the Post-Dispatch.

Bob Joiner: Veteran reporter for the St. Louis American, Post-Dispatch, and St. Louis Public Radio.

George “The G” Logan: A legendary Black radio DJ in the mid-1950s on KXLW, “The G” ushered in what would become “rock and roll radio” in St. Louis and across the country.*

Bill Miller Sr.: Reporter, editor and publisher of the Washington Missourian over 65 years, noted for fair and accurate reporting, and mixing country journalism with tough editorial stances on local and regional issues.

Rob & Sally Rains: Long time sports reporters and authors or co-authors of a combined 41 books, they moved into the digital world with StLSportsPage.com in 2011.

John Rawlings: A longtime sports writer and editor, Rawlings was a driving force in helping Major League Baseball and The Sporting News develop news portals and team websites in the early days of the Internet.

Brother George Rueppel, SJ: Founder of radio station WEW in 1921 with many “firsts” in radio.*

James Roy Stockton: Legendary Post-Dispatch writer who covered St. Louis Cardinals baseball for 43 years, hosted a sports radio show for 15 years, and was part of the first telecast of a baseball game in St. Louis.*

Susan Veidt: Helped lead Fleishman-Hillard as it grew to become the world’s largest and most successful public relations agency.

Al Wiman: Award-winning TV medical and science reporter for 29 years, mostly in St. Louis, Wiman is known for his innovative medical series that prompted viewers to take better care of themselves.

(* – Inducted posthumously) The St. Louis Media History Foundation accepts tax-deductible contributions to develop and expand its collection of regional St. Louis media artifacts, its website, oral histories, local archives, and repositories. It also offers exhibits at the Karpeles Manuscript Library Museum, 3524 Russell Blvd., in St. Louis. For more information, visit the Foundation’s Facebook pages or its website, www.stlmediahistory.com.

Two prophetic things happened to Walt Jaschek at the University of Missouri – St. Lous in the early 1970s. First, he met and became friends with Paul Fey, who, like Jaschek, served as editor the college newspaper, The Current. (See a story about that.) “We shared passions for media and marketing, and daydreamed about someday going into business together,” Jaschek says.

Second, he received a degree in Speech Communications. “At the time, I was set on becoming writer for print, and didn’t really think my career would have anything to do with my degree in a literal sense.”

After stint in corporate PR for Southwestern Bell Telecom, Walt realized his love of comedy and broadcast media was better suited for the world of advertising, which treasured humorous commercials that could stand out and sell products. He became creative director for advertising agencies in Colorado and his native St. Louis.

In 1988, Jaschek launched his own full-time freelance writing business, which led, through frequent collaborations with producer Paul Fey, to the formation of Paul & Walt three years later.

In 1991, after separate successful career tracks, Jaschek and Fey teamed up as Paul & Walt Worldwide, a company specializing in funny radio commercials. “Amazing!,” says Jaschek. “Paul and I get to work together on a daily basis — and I have actually have a job that involves speech communications.”

Jaschek is partner and head writer of the firm, scripting many of its campaigns and participating in its marketing and development. As the company’s awards stack up, Walt is most proud of a CLIO Award for “Best Radio Copywriting.” It went to the agency’s spot “Missing Persons” for WCIX-TV.

Though he lives in St. Louis, Jaschek “commutes” to the company’s Los Angeles headquarters via phone, email, and sometimes plane. His scripts are now included in advertising copywriting textbooks, and he is an adjunct professor of advertising at Webster University in St. Louis.

Regarding the mission of Paul & Walt Worldwide, Jaschek says:

“We position ourselves as the next generation of radio specialists, picking up the mantle from those creators who inspired us in our college days,” Jaschek says. “We are trying to keep the tradition of great radio alive and take it places it’s never been before.”

In his spare time, Walt writes copy, content and comics at WaltNow.com, where he declares himself “Director of Fun.” Fun: it’s a running theme for Paul and Walt. Since those college days and beyond.